David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

success

When you’re finally facing death, how many people will love you?

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Warren Buffett is one of the world’s richest men. He’s widely considered to be among the world’s most successful investors.

But what does Buffett consider to be success? Is it your net worth? Is it some measure of cash liquidity? Is success found in being one of the top 1 percent of earners? Or something else?

In her biography of Buffett, writer Alice Schroeder tells the story about a time when Buffett was asked that question. He had given a presentation at the University of Georgia and was answering student questions at the end.

“What’s your definition of success?” one of the students asked.

Buffett’s answer said nothing about money or land or stocks or comparisons to other people. He was concerned only about who loved him. He told the student that when you reached the point at which you faced death, your only measure of success should be whether the “people you want to have love you actually do love you.”

He elaborated.

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Epiphany: Was it so bad that I used to work toward perfection?

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If you’re certain about what you want and you’re relentless in doing things your way, you’re going to create some enemies.

Most people don’t appreciate certainty in others. They don’t appreciate strong convictions about what’s right and what’s wrong. They don’t appreciate people who step out from the crowd and say, “I’m going to do this my way.”

When I was a teen-ager and when I was a young adult, I had strong ideas about how to do things and I didn’t let anything get in the way of my pursuing what I saw as the right way. What’s more, I’m not sure I was socially aware enough at the time to notice or even care that people didn’t like my certainty and my drive to do things my way. For many years, I didn’t even understand that others would resent such a person. It would have baffled me.

I’ve had something of an epiphany in the last few days. I might have discovered something that will take me back toward something I used to be. I’m not sure yet, but it might be very important.

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Though it’s helpful to have talent, that won’t guarantee success

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You are probably very talented at something. Maybe you’re talented at several things. I discovered when I was young that I had quite a bit of talent. When I was in school — competing against the fairly low expectations set by a typical school — that made it easy for me to stand out.

Once I got into the real world, I still had more talent than most people around me, but I didn’t achieve as much as I should have. I had achieved success as a student without even trying. Without realizing it, I was expecting life to work that way — but nobody showed up at my door to tell me how great I was. The world wasn’t eager to reward my alleged brilliance and talent.

It took me many years to consciously learn this lesson, but I eventually learned that talent is enough to give me a possibility of competing — but talent alone was never enough to let me win.

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